This invention relates to a hospital bed, and more particularly, to a hospital bed having the capability of measuring and maintaining a record of a patient't weight as well as changes in the patient's weight.
The bed of the present invention has its principal use in intensive care or critical care units of a hospital. There, it is necessary to monitor vital functions of a patient on a regular basis. Some must be monitored continuously. One of the vital functions that must be measured on a regular basis is the patient's weight.
Since the patient's health is in such a state that the patient is required to be in intensive or critical care, it is highly likely that the patient cannot leave the bed for a weight measurement and that the patient probably should not be subjected to the trauma attending moving the patient to some sort of scale.
Patient weighing has been done in various ways. A cumbersome sling overlying the bed has been provided, and it has been necessary to move the patient onto the sling and to lift the patient, by means of the sling, off the bed to effect the weighing operation.
Thin weighing scales adapted to be slid under the patient have been disclosed. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,217,818 and 3,463,368.
A weigh system forming part of a bed assembly has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,015,677. Since there is practically no bed structure disclosed, it is assumed that the total bed and patient are weighed.
It is known that Stryker Corp. of Kalamazoo, Michigan is marketing a bed having a weight monitoring capability, but not much is known about how the weighing is accomplished. The literature indicates that there are provisions for changing tare to accommodate things added or taken from the bed. Aside from the background art heretofore disclosed, there is little art relating to weigh beds.